the printed name as wistfully as if it had been his face. It cost an
effort to send down the cold fiction that she was not at home, and she
could not deny herself the consolation of leaning on the baluster of the
second landing, and listening for his step in the hall below. But there
was no movement. Could it be possible he was waiting for her to come in?
Hush! That was the drawing-room door. But instead of Kerr, Shima
emerged. He was heading for the stair with his little silver tray and
upon it--a note. Oh, impudence! How dared he give her the lie, by the
hand of her own butler! She stood her ground, and Shima delivered the
missive as if it were most usual to find one's mistress beflounced in
peignoir and petticoats, hanging breathless over the baluster.
"Take that back," she said coldly, "and tell him that I am out; and,
Shima,"--she addressed the man's intelligence--"make him understand it."
She watched the note departing. How she longed to call Shima back and
open it! There was a pause--then Kerr emerged from the drawing-room. As
he crossed the hall he glanced up at the stair and as much as was
visible of the landing. He hadn't taken Shima's word for it, after all!
The vestibule door closed noiselessly after him, the outer door shut
with a heavy sound. Yet before that sound had ceased to vibrate, she
heard it shut again. Was he coming back? There was a presence in the
vestibule very vaguely seen through the glass and lace of the inner
door. Her heart beat with apprehension. The door opened upon Clara.
Flora precipitately retreated. She was more disturbed than relieved by
the unexpected appearance. For Clara must have seen Kerr leave the
house. Three times now within three days he had been found with her or
waiting for her. She wondered if Clara would ask her awkward questions.
But Clara, when she entered Flora's dressing-room a few moments later
with the shopping-list, instead of a question, offered a statement.
"I don't like that man," she announced.
"Who?"
"That Kerr. I met him just now on the steps. Don't you feel there is
something wrong about him?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Flora vaguely.
Clara gave her a bright glance.
"But you weren't at home to him."
"I'm not at home to any one this morning," Flora answered evasively,
feeling the probe of Clara's eyes. "I'm feeling ill. I'm not going out
this evening either. I think I'll ring up Burlingame and tell Harry." It
was in her mind that she might manage to make him stay with her while
Clara went on to the reception.
"Burlingame! Harry!" Clara echoed in surprise. "Why, he's in town. I saw
him just now as I was coming up."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. He was walking up Clay from Kearney. I was in the car."
"Why that--that is--" Flora stammered in her surprise. "Then something
must have kept him," she altered her sentence quickly. But though this
seemed the probable explanation she did not believe it. Harry walking
toward Chinatown, when he had told her distinctly he would be in
Burlingame! She thought of the goldsmith shop and there returned to her
the memory of how Harry and the blue-eyed Chinaman had looked when she
had turned from the window and seen them standing together in the back
of the shop.
"You do look ill," Clara remarked. "Why don't you stay in bed, and not
try to see any one?"
Flora murmured that that was her intention, but she was far from
speaking the truth. She only waited to make sure of Clara's being in her
own rooms to get out of the house and telephone to Harry.
It was not far to the nearest booth, a block or two down the
cross-street. She rang, first, the office. The word came back promptly
in his partner's voice. He had gone to Burlingame by the early train. It
was the same at the club. He must be in town, then, on secret business.
She left the apothecary's and, with serious face, walked on down the
street, away from her house. She was thinking that now she knew Harry
had lied to her. And it was the second time. But perhaps it was just
because he thought her innocent that he was keeping her so in the dark.
Suppose she should tell him flatly what she had found out about him
to-day?
She walked rapidly, in her excitement, turning the troubling question
over in her mind. She did not realize how far she had gone until some
girl she knew, passing and nodding to her, called her out of her
reverie. She was almost in front of the University Club. A few blocks
more and she would be in the shopping district. She hesitated, then
decided that it would be better to walk a little further and take a
cross-town car.
A group of men was leaving the club. Two lingered on the steps, the
other coming quickly out. At sight of him, she averted her face, and,
hurrying, turned the corner and walked down a block. Her heart was
beating rapidly. What if he had seen her! She looked about--there was no
cab in sight--the best thing to do was to slip into one of the crowded
shops, full of women, and wait until the danger had passed. Once inside
the door of the nearest, she felt herself, with relief, only one of a
horde of pricers, lookers and buyers. She felt as if she had lost her
identity. She went to the nearest counter and asked for veils. Partly
concealed behind the bulk of the woman next her, she kept her eye on the
door. She saw Kerr come in. How absurd to think that she could escape
him! She turned her back and waited a moment or two, still hoping he
might pass her by. Then, she heard his voice behind her:
"Well, this is luck!"
She was conscious of giving him a limp hand. He sat down on the vacant
stool next her, laughing.
"You are a most remarkably fast walker," he observed.
"I had to buy a veil," Flora murmured.
"Has it taken you all the morning?"
She could see she had not fooled him.
"I had a great many other things to do." She was resolved not to admit
anything.
"No doubt, but I wanted to see you very much last night, and again this
morning. I may see you this evening, perhaps?" He was grave now. She saw
that he awaited her answer in anxiety.
"But--" she hesitated just a moment too long before she added, "I'm
going out this evening."
She started nervously to rise.
"Wait," he said in a voice that was audible to the shop-girl, "your
package has not come."
She looked at him helplessly, so attractive and so inimical to her. He
swung around, back to the counter, and lowered his voice. "Did you know
I called upon you yesterday morning, also?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Mr. Cressy and I waited for you together. Did he mention it to you?"
"No." Her lips let the word out slowly.
"That's a reticent friend of yours!" The exclamation, and the truth of
it, put her on her guard.
"I can't discuss him with you," she said coldly.
"Yet no doubt you have discussed me with him?"
"Never!"
"You haven't told him anything?" The incredulity, the amazement of his
face put before her, for the first time, how extraordinary her conduct
must seem. What could he think of her? What construction would he put
upon it? She blushed, neck to forehead, and her voice was scarcely
audible as she answered "No."
But at that small word his whole mood warmed to her. "Why, then," he
began eagerly, "if Cressy doesn't know--"
"Oh, but he--" Flora stopped in terror of herself. "I can't talk of him,
I must not. Don't ask me!" she implored, "and please, please don't come
to my house again!"
He gave his head a puzzled, impatient shake. "Then where _am_ I to see
you?"
"In a few days--perhaps to-morrow--I will let you know." She rose. She
had her package now. She was getting back her courage. There was no
further way of keeping her.
But he followed her closely through the crowd to the door. "Yes," he
said quickly under his breath, "in a few days, perhaps to-morrow, as
soon as you get rid of it, you won't mind meeting me! What are you
afraid of? Surely not me?"
She was, but hotly denied it.
"I am not afraid of you. I am afraid of them!"
"Of them!" He peered at her. "What are you talking about now?"
Ah, she had said too much! She bit her lip. They had reached the corner,
and the gliding cable car was approaching. She turned to him with a last
appeal.
"Don't ask me anything! Don't come with me! Don't follow me!"
Not until she was safely inside the car did she dare look back at him.
He was still on the corner, and he raised his hat and smiled so
reassuringly that she was half-way home before she realized that, in
spite of all she had urged upon him, he had not committed himself to any
promise. And yet, she thought in dismay, he had almost made her give
away Harry's confidence. She was seeing more and more clearly that this
was the danger of meeting him. He always got something out of her and
never, by chance, gave her anything in return. If he should seek her
to-night she dared not be at home! Any place would be safer than her own
house. It would be better to fulfil her engagement and go to the
reception with Clara and Harry. That was a house Kerr did not know.
It was awkward to have to announce this sudden change of plan after her
pretenses of the morning, but of late she had lived too constantly with
danger for Clara's lifted eyebrows to daunt her. The mere trivial act of
being dressed each day was fraught with danger. To get the sapphire off
her person before Marrika should appear; to put it back somehow after
Marrika had done; to shift it from one place to another as she wore
gowns cut high or low--and every moment in fear lest she be discovered
in the act! This was her daily manoeuver. To-night she clasped the
chain around her waist beneath her petticoats. But Marrika's sensitive
fingers, smoothing over, for the last time, the close-fitting front of
the gown, felt the sapphire, fumbled with it, and tried to adjust it
like a button.
"That is all right," Flora said quickly. "Nothing shows." Was it always
to make itself known, she thought uneasily, no matter how it was hid?
She was ready early, in the hope that Harry might come, as he had been
wont to do, a little before the appointed hour. But he turned up without
a moment to spare. Clara was down-stairs in her cloak when he appeared.
There was no chance for a word at dinner. But if she could not manage it
later in the wider field of the reception, why, then she deserved to
fail in everything.
But she found, upon their arrival that even this was going to be hard to
bring about. For she was immediately pounced upon--first, by Ella
Buller.
"Why, Flora," at the top of her voice, "where have you been all these
days!" Then in a hot whisper, "Did you speak to her? It hasn't done one
bit of good."
"I think you are mistaken," Flora murmured. "But be careful, and let me
know--" She had only time for that broken sentence before she was
surrounded; and other voices took up the chorus.
She was getting to be a perfect hermit.
She was forgetting all her old friends.
And a less kindly voice in the background added, "Yes, for new ones."
She realized with some alarm that though she had forgotten her public,
it had kept its eye on her. She answered, laughing, that she was keeping
Lent early, and allowed herself to be drifted about through the crowd
by more or less entertaining people, now and then getting glimpses of
Harry, tracking him by his burnished brown head, waiting her opportunity
to get him cornered. At last she saw him making for the smoking-room.
Connecting this with the drawing-room where she stood was a small red
lounging-room, walls, floor and furniture all covered with crimson
velvet. It had a third door which communicated indirectly with the
reception-rooms, by means of a little hall. She was near that hall, and
it would be the work of a moment to slip by way of it into the red room
and stop Harry on his way through. She had not played at such a game
since, as a child, she had jumped out on people from dark closets, and
Harry was as much astonished as she could remember they had been. He was
cutting the end of a cigar and he all but dropped it.
"What in the world are you doing here alone?" He spoke peevishly. "I
don't see how a crowd of men can leave such a bundle of fascination at
large!"
She made him a low courtesy and said she was preventing him from doing
so.
"It's very good of you, and you are very pretty, Flora," he admitted
with a grudging smile, "but I've got to see a man in there." His eyes
went to the door of the smoking-room whence was audible a discussion of
voices, and among them Judge Buller's basso. She was between Harry and
the door. Laughingly, he made as if to put her aside, when the door
through which she had entered opened again sharply; and Kerr came in.
"Forgive me. I followed you," he began. Then he saw Harry.
"I--ha--ha--I've been hunting for you, Cressy, all the evening!"
[Illustration: "FORGIVE ME, I FOLLOWED YOU."]
Harry accepted the statement with a cynical smile. It was too evidently
not for him Kerr had been hunting, and after the first stammer of
embarrassment, the Englishman made no attempt to conceal his real
intentions. His words merely served him as an excuse not to retreat.
"This is a good place to sit," he said, pushing forward a chair for
Flora. She sank into it, wondering weakly what daring or what danger had
brought him into a house where he was not known, to seek her. He sat
down in the compartment of a double settee near her. Harry still stood
with a dubious smile on his face. The look the two men exchanged
appeared to her a prolongment of their earnest interrogation in the
picture gallery; but this time it struck her that both carried it off
less well. Harry, especially, bore it badly.
"Did you say you were looking for me?" he remarked. "Well, Buller's been
looking for _you_. He wants to know about some Englishman that they're
trying to put up at the club."
"How's that? Oh, yes! I remember." Kerr shrugged. "Never heard of him at
home, and can't vouch for every fellow who comes along, just because he
is English."
"Quite so!" said Harry, with a straight look at Kerr that made Flora
uncomfortable.
"But Judge Buller has already vouched for that man," she said quickly,
"so he must be all right."
Kerr inclined his head to her with a smile.
"Buller is easily taken in," said Harry calmly. Under the direct, the
insolent meaning of his look Flora felt her face grow hot--her hands
cold. Harry could sit there taunting this man, hitting him over another
man's back, and Kerr could not resent it. He could only sit--his head a
little canted forward--looking at Harry with the traces of a dry smile
upon his lips.
She thought the next moment everything would be declared. She sprang up,
and, with an impulse for rescue, went to the door of the smoking-room.
"Judge Buller," she called.
There was a sudden cessation of talk; a movement of forms dimly seen in
the thick blue element; and then through wreaths of smoke, the judge's
face dawned upon her like a sun through fog.
"Well, well, Miss Flora," he wanted to know, "to what bad action of
mine do I owe this good fortune?"
She retreated, beckoning him to the middle of the room. "You owe it to
the bad action of another," she said gaily. "Your friends are being
slandered."
Harry made a movement as if he would have stopped her, and the
expression of his face, in its alarm, was comic. But she paid no heed.
She laid her hand on Harry's arm. "Mr. Kerr is just about to accuse us
of being impostors," she announced. She had robbed the situation of its
peril by gaily turning it exactly inside out.
The judge blinked, puzzled at this extraordinary statement. Harry was
disconcerted; but Kerr showed an astonishment that amazed her--a concern
that she could not understand. He stared at her. Then he laughed rather
shakily as he turned to her with a mock gallant bow.
"All women impose upon us, madam. And as for Mr. Cressy"--he fixed Harry
with a look--"I could not accuse him of being an impostor since we have
met in the sacred limits of of St. James'."
The two glances that crossed before Flora's watchful eyes were keen as
thrust and parry of rapiers. Harry bowed stiffly.
"I believe, for a fact, we did _not_ meet, but I think I saw you there
once--at some Embassy ball."
The words rang, to Flora's ears, as if they had been shouted from the
housetops. In the speaking pause that followed there was audible an
unknown hortatory voice from the smoking-room.
"I tell you it's a damn-fool way to manage it! What's the good of twenty
thousand dollars' reward?" Flora clutched nervously at the back of her
chair. She seemed to see the danger of discovery piling up above Kerr
like a mountain.
The judge chuckled. "You see what you saved me from. They've been at it
hammer and tongs all the evening. Every man in town has his idea on
that subject."
"For instance, what is that one?" Kerr's casual voice was in contrast to
his guarded eyes.
The judge looked pleased. "That one? Why, that's my own--was, at least,
half an hour ago. You see, about that twenty-thousand-dollar
proposition--" They moved nearer him. They stood, the four, around the
red velvet-covered table, like people waiting to be served. "The trouble
is right here," said the judge, emphasizing with blunt forefinger. "The
crook has a pal. That's probable, isn't it?"
Harry nodded. Flora felt Kerr's eyes upon her, but she could not look at
him.
"And we see the thing is at a deadlock, don't we? Well, now," the judge
went on triumphantly, "we know if any one person had the whole ring it
would be turned in by this time. That is the weak spot in the reward
policy. They didn't reckon on the thing's being split."
"Split? No, really, do you think that possible?" Kerr inquired, and
Flora caught a glimmer of irony in his voice.
"Well, can you see one of those chaps trusting the other with more than
half of it?" The judge was scornful. "And a fellow needs a whole ring if
he is after a reward." He rolled his head waggishly. "Oh, I could have
been a crook myself!" he chuckled, but his was the only smiling face in
the party.
For Kerr's was pale, schooled to a rigid self-control.
And Harry's was crimson and swollen, as if with a sudden rush of blood.
His twitching hands, his sullen eyes, responded to Judge Buller's last
word as if it had been an accusation.
"It makes me damned sick, the way you fellows talk--as if it was the
easiest thing in the world to--" He broke off. It was such a tone,
loose, harsh and uncontrolled, as made Flora shrink.
As if he sensed that movement in her, he turned upon her furiously.
"Well, are we going to stand here all night?" He took her by the arm.
She felt as if he had struck her. Buller was staring at him, but Kerr
had opened the door through which she had entered, and now, turning his
back upon Harry, silently motioned her out.
She had a moment's fear that Harry's grasp, even then, wouldn't let go.
Indeed, for a moment he stood clutching her, as if, now that his rage
had spent itself, she was the one thing he could hold to. Then she felt
his fingers loosen. He stood there alone, looking, with his great bulk,
and his great strength, and his abashed bewilderment, rather pathetic.
But that aspect reached her dimly, for the fear of him was uppermost.
Her arm still burned where he had grasped it. She moved away from him
toward the door Kerr had opened for her. She passed from the light of
the crimson room into the dark of the passage. Some one followed her and
closed the door. Some one caught step with her. It was Kerr. He bent
his dark head to speak low.
"I don't know why you did it, you quixotic child, but you must not
expose yourself in this way, for any reason whatsoever."
The light of the crowded rooms burst upon them again.
"Oh," she turned to him beseechingly, "can't you get me away?"
"Surely." His manner was as if nothing had happened. His smile was
reassuring. "I'll call your carriage, and find Mrs. Britton."
When Flora came down from the dressing-room she found Clara already in
the carriage, and Kerr mounting guard in the hall. As he handed her in,
Clara leaned forward.
"Where is Mr. Cressy?" she inquired.
"He sent his apologies," Kerr explained. "He is not able to get away
just now."
Clara could not control a look of astonishment. As the carriage began to
move and Kerr's face disappeared from the square of the window, she
turned to Flora.
"Have you and Harry quarreled over that man?"
Flora's voice was low. "No. But Harry--Harry--" she stammered, hardly
knowing how to put it, then put it most truly: "Harry is not quite
himself to-night."
Flora lay back in the carriage. She was dimly aware of Clara's presence
beside her, but for the moment Clara had ceased to be a factor. The
shape that filled all the foreground of her thought was Harry. He loomed
alarming to her imagination--all the more so since, for the moment, he
had seemed to lose his grip. That was another thing she could not quite
understand. That burst of violent irritation following, as it had, Judge
Buller's words! If Kerr had been the speaker it would have been natural
enough, since all through this interview Harry's evident antagonism had
seemed strained to the snapping point.
But poor Judge Buller had been harmless enough. He had been merely
theorizing. But--wait! She made so sharp a movement that Clara looked
at her. The judge's theory might be close to facts that Harry was
cognizant of.
For herself she had had no way of finding out how the sapphire had got
adrift. But hadn't Harry? Hadn't he followed up that singular scene with
the blue-eyed Chinaman by other visits to the goldsmith's shop? Why,
yesterday, when he was supposed to be in Burlingame, Clara had seen him
in Chinatown. The idea burst upon her then. Harry was after the whole
ring. He counted the part she held already his, and for the rest he was
groping in Chinatown; he was trying to reach it through the
imperturbable little goldsmith. But he had not reached it yet--and she
could read his irritation at his failure in his violent outburst when
Judge Buller so innocently flung the difficulties in his face. She knew
as much now as she could bear. If Harry did not suspect Kerr, it would
be strange. But--Harry waiting to make sure of a reward before he
unmasked a thief! It was an ugly thought!
And would he wait for the rest now--now that the situation was so
galling to him? Might not he just decide to take the sapphire, and with
the evidence of that, risk his putting his hand on the "Idol" when he
grasped the thief?
The carriage was stopping. Clara was making ready to get out. She braced
herself to face Clara, in the light, with a casual exterior--but when
she had reached her own rooms she sank in a heap in the chair before her
writing-table, and laid her head upon the table between her arms.
In her wretchedness she found herself turning to Kerr. How stoically he
had endured it all, though it must have borne on him most heavily! How
kind he had been to her! He had not even spoken of himself, though he
must have known the shadows were closing over his head. Any moment he
might be enshrouded. If it came to a choice between having him taken and
giving him the blue jewel, she wondered which she would do.
In the gray hours of the morning she wrote him. She dared not put the
perils into words, but she implied them. She vaguely threatened; and
she implored him to go, avoiding them all, herself more than any; and,
quaking at the possibility that he might, after all, overcome _her_, she
declared that before he went she would not see him again. She closed
with the forbidding statement that whether he stayed or went, at the end
of three days she would make a sure disposal of the ring. She put all
this in reckless black and white and sent it by the hand of Shima. Then
she waited. She waited, in her little isolation, with the sapphire
always hung about her neck, waited with what anticipation of marvelous
results--avowals, ideal farewells, or possibly some incredible
transformation of the grim face of the business. And the answer was
silence.
XVI
THE HEART OF THE DILEMMA
There is, in the heart of each gale of events, a storm center of quiet.
It is the very deadlock of contending forces, in which the individual
has space for breath and apprehension. Into this lull Flora fell panting
from her last experience, more frightened by this false calm than by the
whirlwind that had landed her there. Now she had time to mark the echoes
of the storm about her, and to realize her position. Her absorption had
peopled the world for her with four people at most. Now she had time to
look at the larger aspect.